


Happy Birthday, Mom

by Parker4131970



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Birthday, Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Male-Female Friendship, mourning a parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23240161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker4131970/pseuds/Parker4131970
Summary: Higgins finds Magnum reminiscing about his mother. One-shot, short read.
Relationships: Juliet Higgins/Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	Happy Birthday, Mom

A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best but his mother the longest. ~ Irish Proverb

~*~

He sat in the dimly lit room, on the floor. All around him lay memorabilia from his childhood, high school, his military career and a few things since moving to Hawaii. On his lap lay a thick, maroon photo album. His fingers gently shifted over the old photos, over people’s faces forever frozen in the moment. A line of tears tracked from his soft brown eyes and wet his printed shirt. Cold though they were, he paid the tears no attention. 

The photos took him back in time to both worse and better days. He could hear his father’s laughter, smell his mother’s perfume and feel his friend’s hand on his shoulder as he slapped him on the back with pride. What he wouldn’t give to relive those good days, at least as long as he didn’t have to live the bad ones over again. Man, if he could only ride that ugly banana seat bicycle one more time. What he wouldn’t give to go through his friends’ baseball card collections again. Back then he hadn’t known they’d be worth a fortune some day. 

Past the middle of the photo album he found a picture of himself in about eighth grade with a sweet, baby-faced girl he’d taken to winter formal. His mother had insisted he give her a pink carnation corsage. He remembered his mother half singing an old song she’d grown up listening to; something about a white sport coat and a pink carnation. It hadn’t made sense then but his date had touched it softly several times throughout the evening. 

“You were right, Mom, she loved it,” he murmured to himself as he flipped to the next page. 

“Magnum, what on earth?” Higgins stopped short at the sight of a grown man sitting cross-legged in the middle of a dark room. When he looked up at her she noted the glistening of tears on his face. 

“Oh, hey, Higgins. Did you need something?” He closed the album and began to place all the mementos back into a plastic storage container. 

“I tried calling you, several times. What is all this?” She gestured to the bits and pieces of Magnum’s life. 

“Ah, nothing important,” he shrugged, his game face on for her. 

Higgins stood still and took a better look at the things Thomas had dragged out of storage in his closet. She had a similar storage container in her bedroom where she kept her first teddy bear and a pencil a boy she had a crush on had given her. 

“Tell me about her,” Higgins settled herself on the floor beside Magnum who still had the photo album on his lap. She’d reached over and tapped a photo of his mother smiling as she stood beside a gangly teenage Thomas. 

“It’s nothing, Higgy. I was looking for something else and found these things,” he protested. 

“Please, Magnum?” she prodded, her voice soft as she met his gaze. 

“I was sixteen in this picture. I’d just gotten my driver’s license and she persisted until I let her take a picture.” He shook his head before drawing one hand over his whole face. 

“She looks proud of you,” Juliet said. 

“Mom was proud of me. She told anyone who would listen about what I’d accomplished.” An errant tear wet his left cheekbone. “Today would have been her birthday,” he frowned as he traced her features on the 3X5 snapshot. 

So that’s the reason for the nostalgia, Juliet thought. She knew family - Ohana- meant everything to Magnum, the friends he’d adopted as brothers, Kumu whom he respected as an aunt and her, Juliet Higgins. She didn’t know where she fit into his family hierarchy; sister, cousin? 

Something else? 

“These things aren’t ‘nothing’, Magnum. They’re your memories, reminders of where you came from, pieces of who you are.” Juliet gently laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder and felt him sigh heavily. 

“I wonder if she’d still be proud of me?” he spoke softly, not meeting Juliet’s gaze. 

“Yes, Magnum, I believe she would. We certainly all are.” She leaned forward and tilted her head to catch his eye. “I certainly am.” Juliet gave him a smile. 

“Even if I am a thorn in your side?” he cocked one eyebrow. 

“One may build up a tolerance to strychnine given the proper time and in sufficiently small doses,” she retorted primly even as she smiled. 

“Wow, thanks, Higgins. I just love being compared to poison.” He gave her a bigger smile but there was still an underlying sadness in his eyes. Silence fell between them and Magnum returned to look at the page of photos. 

“You know, Thomas, it’s alright to grieve for her, to admit that you still need your mother.” Juliet met his somber gaze with one of her own. In her eyes it wasn’t unmanly to shed a tear for the woman who had raised him, loved and encouraged him. 

“I know,” he almost whispered, “but thanks.” 

“Tell me more about her then?” Juliet tilted her head to look at him better. 

Juliet and Thomas spent an hour or more going through his photo album as he commented on each picture and shared stories of his growing up years. Juliet never criticized, only let him share as little or as much as he wanted. 

The end

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into Magnum P.I 92018) fan fiction. I hope I wrote them in-character to everyone's satisfaction.


End file.
